


Going On

by chaserzachsmith



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dumbledore's Army, M/M, and some more general unhealthiness, and some unhealthy self-deprecation, my apologies, oh hell there's a lot of swearing, some healthy self-deprecation, there's some swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-18 16:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10620765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaserzachsmith/pseuds/chaserzachsmith
Summary: Or, Seamus's life is a Huge Goddamn Mess, in two parts.





	1. Chapter 1

[Author's note: This fic is based heavily on the fic "We Grew" by writer "oh help" on fanfiction.net, which, if you haven't read yet, you should really go read. It's a delightfully characterised and very well-written account of Dean and Seamus's lives during and after Hogwarts, and one of my favorite reads of all time.]

* * *

Seamus wanted very, very badly to go on the run. With Dean. Of course with Dean.

Maybe because he's always believed that two heads are better than one, maybe because Dean has become such an important piece of his life that he doesn't want to imagine them apart, maybe because he's impulsive and stupid.

His mother is not a particularly formidable woman. She's petite, which he blames for his own stature, and mousy, which he pretends he isn't. Even so, she's about as stubborn as a troll when she wants to be. That's another trait Seamus pretends he didn't inherit.

They rarely fight, simply because they rarely disagree. Seamus tells himself that it's because they're both smart, but really it's just that Seamus loves his mother a lot, and for her part, she hates to upset him.

It's here that she draws the line.

"You're not going on the run," she snaps. She is not focused on the fight as much as she is on her cooking; she is trying to supervise two charmed knives and a pot of water on the stove. "Fugitive from the law, running from the Death Eaters, starving to death, dying of exposure, I won't have it!"

"Dean's not safe out on his own, is he?" Seamus shoots back. He's only a foot away from her, leaning on the counter and being unhelpful. "Nowhere in the whole of Britain or Ireland is gonna be  _safe._  It's stupid to pretend that going back to Hogwarts'll protect anyone."

"Watch who you call stupid," says his mother, but with very little menace. Seamus is reminded, fleetingly, that this is why he prefers not to fight her. He just feels guilty for doing it. "The worst you can do at school is break the rules. You go on the run, they could kill you."

Seamus scowls. "I mean that Dean and I are a team, okay? We work together. We can survive together."

" _Seamus_ ," says his mother. "I said no."

Seamus scowls again. In truth, he hasn't stopped scowling.

It does not occur to Seamus that he could simply disobey his mother.

Dean disappears without a goodbye. Seamus throws a book at the wall of his bedroom and kicks his trunk. His feet hurt now. His mother leaves him alone.

·¤·

"We can't just let them get away with this," says Ginny. She is sitting on Neville's bed, cross-legged, pyjamas rolled up at the ankles because they're a little too long. "They're terrorising the school. Yelling at everyone, spreading their stupid lies,  _threatening_  people-"

"What do you suggest we do?" demands Neville, who is sitting opposite her twisting the edge of his blanket. "We can't just go picking fights, Ginny! These are Death Eaters-"

"We can't let them just pound us," counters Ginny. "There has to be something we can do! All we need to do is make it clear that there are ways to fight this-"

"You realize they could kill us," says Seamus, who is lying in his own bed trying to spin a football on one finger. "Me and Neville are legally adults. Age isn't gonna protect everyone."

"Don't be so morbid," says Ginny. "They can't hurt their students, it's illegal."

"It is legal, remember Filch? Fifth year? You know what  _is_  illegal?" Seamus says, and he spins the football so aggressively that it tips off his finger and falls to the floor. "Killing people. Funny thing is, You-Know-Who doesn't care." He Summons the football and bounces it in one hand.

"We're not dealing with You-Know-Who," says Neville.

"No, we're just dealing with his devoted followers," says Seamus. "It isn't any different than other Death Eater just because they're both stupid."

Seamus doesn't care to admit it, but he's afraid.

·¤·

He hears about Dean in the first Potterwatch broadcast, in the list of witches and wizards missing, presumed on the run, and Lavender gives him a tentative look. He supposes she's worried for him. The other recent mention of Dean hadn't even been a mention of Dean and he'd gone berserk.

But really, screw Alecto Carrow and her foul, Muggle-hating, bigoted mouth, anyway.

He's moody. He's honestly moody a lot, though, so it's nothing special today. This has become his life, wisecracking and moodiness and serving detentions and lying awake at night because he can't ever sleep.

What a fucking mess.

Not that he cares. He stopped caring a while ago.

He's been friends with Dean for six years, six years in which he didn't really make other friends. Now Dean is God knows where and Seamus doesn't have any friends. Sure, he has Neville. He has Lavender and Parvati. It isn't the same. For one thing, Neville doesn't ever want to talk about anything but the DA, which Seamus really doesn't care to discuss every goddamn day. And Lavender and Parvati are already best friends and Seamus really doesn't care to feel excluded all the time.

So instead, he mopes around. Mopes when he's alone, at least, and does his best to be an idiot when he's not alone. It's just about the only thing he can do, be an idiot and make idiot jokes and do idiot things and take the lumps with good humour.

"You never used to be so much trouble," Lavender says one day, her forehead wrinkled with worry, one hand on her hip. Seamus is slouching in his armchair; he has a wicked headache and truthfully, she isn't helping.

"I've always been trouble," he says. "Just being louder about it now, is all."

Lavender sighs and sits next to him on the couch. "It won't do anyone any favours if you keep doing these things, you know."

"I'm  _sorry_ ," says Seamus. He wishes immediately that he had been a bit kinder about it; she bristles immediately, folds her arms.

"Fine, then."

"Fine," he shoots back, not really giving himself enough time to think it over. He might as well commit to pissing her off. God knows he feels awful already. What the hell.

"I don't know why I bother," she says.

"Then don't."

"You never listen, do you? You're just so  _determined_  to get your stupid kicks off fighting anyone you want to."

She's going to keep on going, Seamus realises. He wonders how long she's been mad at him, if it's only coming out now. He doesn't care. He will later, probably. "What do you want me to say, Lavender?"

"Say you'll stop being such a," she says, then pauses, maybe unable to think of anything appropriately disdainful. "There's a  _difference_  between standing up to the Carrows and provoking them."

"It's not like it matters," says Seamus, and he looks at his cuticles and not at Lavender. "It's not hurting anyone."

"It's hurting you," she points out.

"So?" says Seamus. Some third year is staring at them. Seamus glares until the kid looks away.

"So, you're better than that," she says. "It's not your  _job_  to get beat up every week-"

"If you say so," says Seamus, and he picks a bit of lint off the sleeve of his sleeve.

Lavender makes a small huffing sound, so he can tell she's still mad. They don't say anything else. Maybe it's all been said already. Maybe Seamus just doesn't care.

·¤·

His mother flips out when he tells her, of course. Says she won't send him back to Hogwarts, she's taking him on the run. Which is pretty hypocritical, really, since she'd fought him on that all summer.

He has to be there, he tells her. He's a part of something.

(It's been a long time since he felt like a part of something.)

He doesn't fight her often. But really, he's fought pretty much everyone else by this point, so he might as well.

Sometimes he thinks that she sees something in him that isn't there. It worries him, because sooner or later she'll realise he's no better than anyone else. He doesn't know if he wants that or not.

Ginny sits on Neville's bed, and they talk more quietly now that Luna's gone. Seamus can still hear everything, but he's putting on a show of not listening. It's the usual crap. Ginny thinks the DA isn't doing enough. Neville agrees but says they need to be careful. They go back and forth for a while. Blah blah blah hope blah blah Carrows blah blah the DA blah blah Harry.

"Does You-Know-Who keep tabs on you?" he asks Amycus in class. "Just to check you're doing your job?"

Amycus frowns, but can't find anything to punish him for. "The Dark Lord… yes."

"Does he know you're still getting mouth from dumb runty micks like me?"

 _That_  was something punishable.

His mother had asked him to be careful, before he'd left. "You don't have to fight them," she'd said. "You can help the school without getting hurt."

He doesn't often fight her. He rarely disobeys her. What a mess.

·¤·

He goes to Hagrid's party. It's a laugh, like the rest of his stupid life.

Of course, the Carrows and a horde of their dumb Death Eater buddies bust in on it and they all have to run for it, but that's life. And they're all used to the Carrows busting in on things by now. Free time, study hour, other classes, meals- Seamus has gotten pulled out of all of these things. Usually without the opportunity to finish whatever he was doing. Not that he cares.

He and Lavender are both caught in the Common Room because they bicker like idiots over who should stall the Carrows when they come calling, so they both get Cruciated, which is irritating just because it was totally avoidable. Seamus tells her she's stupid and she should have just left it to him. She tells him he's an insufferable prat and she's not  _helpless_ , you know. That's not what he meant, obviously, but when she gets to that part of any argument, there's no fighting her.

"People are saying it'll get worse," says Ginny. "Kids, out in the school."

"It  _is_  getting worse," says Neville. They are sitting on Neville's bed again. Seamus thinks it's rather unfair of them to have these conversations here. Hannah and Anthony aren't here, and they're the collective third leader without Luna. And Seamus  _is_  here and sick of listening to them talking themselves in circles.

"If people start losing hope-"

"It gives people hope when we stand up to them," says Neville. "That's why we do it."

Well, no. Seamus does it because it's funny and he's stupid and because it's really the only thing he can do.

They hear about Dean on Potterwatch. His group was killed on the run, and he's missing.

Missing is better than dead, obviously. But really, knowing is better than having no fucking clue. Seamus kicks a wall after leaving the DA meeting. Lavender and Parvati watch him from a little ways away, clearly not too keen on approaching to see if he's alright. He hits the wall too, for good measure. Scrapes up his hand, fuck him.

For the rest of the Potterwatch broadcasts he pays close attention to the lists, and Dean stays firmly in the "missing" list. Seamus is glad for it.

Lavender gives him more wary looks and Neville asks him if he wants to talk about it. Seamus would rather lobotomise himself with a spoon. Neville lets it go and gives him concerned, encouraging looks for the rest of the week.

He gives the Carrows more lip and comes back from detentions with a black eye and a bastard lot of bruises. Lavender folds her arms and tells him in that stupid bossy  _you know I'm right_  tone that she's sorry, but he's being  _reckless_  now and there isn't a lot they can do to help him.

She is right and he does know it. He tells her she can fuck right off, Lavender. She does.

·¤·

He and his mother tiptoe around each other. She asks if the school is better. He lies. She can tell when he lies, usually, but either she doesn't pick up on it, or she decides to let it alone. He's glad for it, at least.

They talk about dumb things. She doesn't want to talk about the war and Seamus reckons he can do that with anyone else, anyway, so they talk about whatever movie his dad's liked recently, or whether the neighbors know their dog shits in everyone else's garden and just don't care, or whatever friend of his mam's is dating someone.

He tells her goodbye a bit more gently than he does usually, because he isn't stupid and he knows his luck won't hold out if he fucks up and gets arrested. The train is segregated again. Everyone is moody in his compartment. Except Hannah, who is just sad.

He plays Exploding Snap with her and a Death Eater sticks his head in the door and confiscates the deck, which doesn't improve anyone's mood.

"Look at that," complains Seamus. "Now they made fun illegal, too."

"Are you surprised?" asks Michael Corner. It's not very friendly.

Seamus shrugs.  _Nobody asked, Corner._

Ginny doesn't come back. The stupid school gets worse, obviously. The DA is still doing a ton to make the Carrows mad. Neville has his super secret meetings in the Room instead of in their dorm. Seamus sits alone in the quiet and tells himself he likes it better this way, anyway.

They stick him in the dungeons one night. Torture him a bit. He gets mouthy. They leave him there overnight. It repeats the next detention he gets. He gets a couple every week, by now. Not because he mouths off  _that_  much, but because they think he will. They're probably right.

They start dragging people off to interrogation. It's a real laugh. Him and Neville are first. No surprise there. He runs his mouth and Neville tells him off when they're getting patched up later in the Common Room.

"Do I care?" Seamus asks.

"You're gonna get us all in trouble," warns Neville.

"I'm very obviously not acting as a group," says Seamus. Neville frowns.

"Still," he says. Seamus doesn't reply.

They torture Neville for some stupid reason. Insolence, his foot, it's because they've finally caught on that it's Neville running things. Someone sets off fireworks and the Carrows have to stop. Seamus goes running to Neville, because he figures that honestly after the mess of this years, they're close enough friends. He watches the Carrows chase the fireworks around. Neville pretends he's okay. Hannah frets. McGonagall whispers, so softly he doubts he was meant to hear it, " _Good Merlin._ "

They Cruciate Lavender and Parvati the next day. He walks up and down and up and down the rows of Gryffindors until he feels sick and sits down and puts his head in his hands.

The Death Eaters, after that, have someone sent for Neville's gran. Didn't take a huge leap of logic, Seamus figures. The school isn't responding to any of the shit the Carrows throw at them. The Carrows weren't supposed to let the school get this out of hand. Neville's behind the majority of the student rebellion, and if they get his gran, they get him. And if they get Neville, they get the school.

But they underestimate exactly how much it'll take to get Neville's gran. Then they underestimate exactly how much it'll take to get Neville, when they try, shortly after Michael Corner almost gets himself killed and the Carrows finally realise they're going too far torturing them. They've run themselves out of options and now all they have are Azkaban and actual murder.

They send five Death Eaters and the Carrows and they corner them all outside the Dark Arts room.

"We don't need to hurt anyone," says one of them. Vaguely familiar. "We just need to ask Mr. Longbottom a few questions ab-"

And, weirdly, it's Parvati who moves first, stepping in front of Neville and Stunning the first Death Eater. Then it's one down, six to go, and Neville takes off running.

The Carrows go after Neville. The rest stay fighting Seamus and Lavender and Parvati. It's a decently long fight, only ends when Snape gets there and puts them in Body-Bind curses.

They get searched in the Great Hall. They get taken to the dungeons and beat on a bit. But Neville escapes.

Seamus and Anthony Goldstein are the next ones who need to run to the Room of Requirement. Then Lavender, Parvati, Padma, Hannah. Then the DA starts avalanching in. They have to, really. It's not safe anymore, out there.

(It won't be safe at Hogwarts, he'd told his mam, back in August. God, if his mother could see him now.)

There's a fifth year who wakes up screaming at night. There's a sixth year who rarely talks, just stares, stares, stares. Seamus cracks jokes and grins and pretends that nothing is wrong, nothing is wrong.

·¤·

Neville says he thinks Harry Potter is gonna come back to Hogwarts. Seamus tells him in no uncertain terms that there's no chance in hell of that happening. Neville gets miffed and tells him that they'll just have to wait and see who's right.

Of course, given Seamus's penchant for being totally wrong and, furthermore, an idiot, it shouldn't be surprising that Harry Potter  _does_  come back to Hogwarts. Seamus glances at Lavender, who looks smug, since she'd believed Neville all along.

(Of course she had. Lavender has an uncanny sense for things, sometimes. Almost like she can predict things. And she's always right. Seamus, well, isn't.)

Harry is skinnier and taller and a whole lot dirtier than he'd been the last time Seamus saw him. Covered in burns and shit. Great. Ron and Hermione have fared better, but not by much. They tell them they need something. They need to  _find_ something and then they'll take off again.

Hell hell hell.

It's not that Seamus is a little bitter that they haven't been stuck in this fucking castle getting their arses tortured off every week for  _months_  the way the DA has. It's that Neville had talked about Harry coming back as though Harry would come back and help them get out of the school and maybe hex Alecto and Amycus silly on the way out. Obviously, that's not what Harry's planning.

But then the door opens and it's Luna and then it opens a bit more and it's  _Dean_.

Seamus could have kissed him; as it is, he just lets out a  _sound_  - half a laugh, half a sob, and coming out more as a weird yelp - and throws himself through the little crowd gathering around Luna and hugs Dean with so much force that they almost fall over. Dean laughs delightedly.

"Seamus!"

"Dean!"

They don't have anything else to say to each other, really. Dean's holding Seamus's shoulders and looking at him. They're both beaming. Beaming beaming beaming.

"You look like  _shit,_  mate," says Dean. Seamus could have cried. He laughs instead.

·¤·

They're fighting at midnight and Dean doesn't have a wand.

"I can throw punches," says Dean. "They'll never see it coming."

"Like hell," says Seamus. "You stay here, I'll go find someone to Disarm."

They move fast. They get separated. Seamus tells himself it's temporary. He'll see Dean again soon. Very soon. Very, very soon.

Seamus has a burn on his arm and a cut on his leg when the ceasefire is called, and he's breathing heavily and almost crying, because he watched Kevin Whitby's head jerked too far to one side just a moment ago and Kevin Whitby is fourteen, maybe fifteen. Whichever. Too young.

They make their way to the Great Hall. Seamus walks through the middle and stops. It's Lavender. Bloody and battered, her chest a gory mess. He kneels next to her. He can tell he's getting a bit hysterical. He leaves when Hannah and Tracey Davis get there, because he's not helping and he knows it.

And Dean is here, standing with Ginny and staring at the rows of bodies. Seamus half limps, half jogs over to see. He calls Dean's name; Dean turns around, looking utterly lost.

They don't say too much. They can't, really.

·¤·

He loses sight of Dean when the battle restarts, because he turns on his heel and races after the Death Eaters running into the Great Hall. (The injured, the dead, he can't let them be attacked. It isn't right.) He finds him again when Harry Potter comes back to life. Nobody's breathing, in that moment, but Harry and You-Know-Who.

It's at the crack of dawn that they all breathe again. It's not really a breath so much as a gasp.

Harry gets swarmed by what looks like the whole population of Wizarding Britain. Seamus turns to Dean in the crowd and hugs him.

They still can't say very much. Nothing that would mean anything, anyway.

Lavender will live, they say. The Healers arrive as a massive group, Apparating people to the hospital, staying at the castle to treat everyone hurt too badly to Apparate. Peeves bounces through the Great Hall yelling. There's food, and Seamus realises suddenly how hungry he is.

Life goes on, he supposes, though he really doesn't think it should. Not this way.


	2. Chapter 2

When he had been sixteen and purposeless, he had told McGonagall that he wanted to do something _cool_ with his life. He'd said the same thing to Dean later on, when they'd been in the dorms. Seamus talking. Dean doodling instead of doing work. It was often like that.

"What d'you mean, something cool?" Dean had asked, the way he used to ask things, with a little laugh in the words. "That wasn't on the pamphlets."

Seamus had laughed. "Did it need to be? Artist wasn't, either."

Something cool. Quidditch star, Auror, Curse Breaker, radio personality, referee- there were lots of cool jobs.

He freaks out though, when he's training with the Aurors. Freaks out and gets himself fake-killed. It's just a Stunner, they're just training. But when they're in the field, freaking out could actually kill him.

He tells the Aurors he'll be fine. Just some post-Battle issues, plenty of the DA has them. He can work through them. He's eighteen now, eighteen and still purposeless. Nothing to do but train with the fucking Aurors or visit Lavender in St. Mungo's.

When he gets home after training, Dean is already home from the Muggle University. Dean looks up and smiles. Seamus nods in greeting and goes to his room.

He misses the way they were, the way it'd been so much _easier_ to be with Dean. Easy and friendly and childish. Now they're both pretending there isn't an elephant in their shitty flat. It's too small a flat to pretend like that, but that doesn't stop them.

Sometimes he wonders if he and Dean are the only ones who feel different. Probably not. There were plenty of people who had friends on the run, at Hogwarts. Plenty of friends torn apart. He wonders if Dean was lucky, to be on the run that year. He wonders if he was lucky not to be.

He sits out drills. Not by choice, the Aurors make him if he's having any trouble breathing. He tells Dean everything is fine, when he asks. No need to explain something he won't understand.

·¤·

The last time he remembers _really_ talking to Dean about something that mattered had been sixth year. Fucked up, that, but the only things that matter for Seamus now are the Aurors and the war, and he doesn't want to talk about either with Dean.

"What happens now?" Dean had asked. Dumbledore was dead, they had locked themselves into their dorm. Seamus had been moody, he'd had a big row with his mam in the middle of the Entrance Hall.

"I dunno," he'd said. "I guess they'll need to find a new Head."

Dean hadn't responded immediately.

"What do you reckon," he'd said, after Seamus had deemed the silence too tentative to interrupt, "happens with, you know, You-Know-Who?"

"What about him?" Seamus had asked.

"You know they used to say that Dumbledore was the only person who scared him," Dean said. "Now what happens?"

Seamus hadn't had an answer for that.

They'd sat there, sat there on Seamus's bed, and Dean had said, "Five quid they replace him with someone as bad as Umbridge."

Seamus had grinned, but with no humour. God, if only they'd known.

·¤·

He and Lavender had bickered constantly, even before seventh year when she became one of the only friends he trusted. They'd bickered about the war, about the DA, about their shoes, about anything.

When he's kicked from the Aurors (shouldn't have been surprising) (was anyway) she comes to the flat. He sends Dean to tell her to come back later. She does; he sends Dean to tell her he's sleeping.

That's all he does, anyway. Sleep and smoke and watch TV. He can't be arsed to pay attention to the TV. He can barely be arsed to _eat_ , much less do anything productive or functional. He wanders, is the thing. He wanders their flat in his sock feet. He gets the mail and sorts it, but he rarely bothers to read the letters he gets.

Dean comes and checks on him, too often for it to be normal checking. He says class is cancelled. He's lying. Seamus says so, and Dean makes a pained face and doesn't reply.

There's an unspoken something, in there. _Someone_ has to come check on Seamus. _Someone_ has to make sure that he's eating. _Someone_ has to make sure he's not spending all his time high or asleep. _Someone_ has to check that he isn't trying to kill himself.

Well, _someone_ needs to stop trying to fix what he doesn't fucking understand, Seamus thinks, during the day when Dean is in class and he feels most bitter and alone. He's almost nineteen now, not that it changes anything.

Dean sees Justin Finch-Fletchley for a while, for longer than he saw anyone else after the war. Makes sense, in a way. Justin and Dean probably understand each other too well.

Dean spends a lot of time at Justin's, but he comes home early in the mornings. Checking on Seamus. Someone has to.

·¤·

One day, Neville shows up at their flat. "Seamus, I know you're there," he calls. "Come on. I want to see you."

Seamus wonders what he's done and lets him in.

Neville had changed in the last year of Hogwarts. He'd gotten taller, but not much. Thinner, but not much. More confident, by a lot. He and Seamus sit at the breakfast table and drink tea.

"How are the Aurors?" Seamus asks. A tad more bitterly than he'd intended. He considers taking it back. He doesn't.

"Good," says Neville. Uncomfortable. Seamus regrets asking.

They sit in silence. "How are you, Seamus?" asks Neville, when it's been too long.

"I'm fine," says Seamus. He's not fine. He's probably even less fine than he'd been during the school year, when he'd had more reason not to be fine.

Neville nods, probably sensing the lie, but doesn't mention it. Instead, he changes the subject to the DA, because they plan on meeting up. Picnicking, of all the things.

He supposes there are the DA members who will like it, who will like pretending to be okay. He's not one of them. Paradoxically.

Last year he and Neville had fought over whether Harry was coming back. Had fought over how best to stand up to the Carrows. Had fought over what the DA could reasonably do. They don't fight today.

"Take care of yourself," Neville says, when he leaves. Seamus nods.

He won't, and he and Neville both know it.

His mam visits him and he lets her in too, because he hates to send her away. Hates to disappoint her. Even now when his entire stupid life of sleeping and smoking and watching TV is the most disappointing thing he's done yet.

Ages ago, he'd called his mother a coward, when she'd wanted to take him home at the end of sixth year. Ages ago, when Dumbledore was only just dead, when Seamus hadn't really comprehended the danger that his murder would cause. Coward, he'd said, and he thought he saw her flinch.

Of course, he's been hiding in a shitty flat talking to a total of two people and avoiding literally everything, so he was really a prat to call her a coward.

But she is kind to him, and she drinks his shitty cheap tea and eats his cheap toast because they don't have scones and they have a real conversation, and they don't talk about anything that matters.

She asks him to come home for Christmas, and he promises to.

The next time Lavender shows up at their flat, Seamus goes to let her in.

·¤·

Dean says everything carefully nowadays- are you okay? do you need anything? can you make yourself dinner? do you want me to stay? do you want to talk? It makes Seamus feel clumsy, careless, because he says _no_ to almost anything Dean asks.

It's easiest when they watch TV, when the focus isn't on the conversation but on some idiot soap opera. Dean makes funny comments about the love interest's hair. He doesn't talk to the TV like it's fragile or pathetic, he sounds almost like the old Dean, the one before the war.

Goddamn it.

Dean gives him weird looks, the kind of weird look that Seamus can tell is him trying to appear normal. There's something secretive, deep, kind. Dean has always been secretive and deep and kind in a way Seamus doubts he'll ever be.

Dean says one day, carefully like every other goddamn thing he does, that he thinks he loves him. Or that he thinks he could. Seamus can't even respond to it, can't even think of how he should feel.

Dean rushes to explain himself, and Seamus feels sort of like shit for making him feel like he needed to. Dean says, so stupidly loyal, that he'll do anything, be anything that Seamus wants him to be.

Seamus doesn't know what to think. Dean lets the subject drop. They don't mention it again.

·¤·

He's pretending not to notice Dean watching him. There's a movie on that he doesn't really care about. That he suspects Dean doesn't care about either. It's just noise, at this point.

"What are you thinking about?" says Dean. He is a picture of relaxation, taking up more of the couch than is fair.

Seamus considers saying _nothing important_ , but says instead "The movie."

"What about it?"

"How neither of us are watching it," says Seamus, and Dean sort of laughs. It makes him think about the last time he heard Dean really laugh. Not the drunken giggles from when Dean went out with whoever he was sleeping with at the time, not the chuckles from when Justin had been around all the time. Not the sort-of laughs from now, with Seamus.

"-in another movie," Dean is saying now. "There's those Star Wars things."

"Do you like those?" asks Seamus.

He doesn't care about the answer, but he wishes he could ask Dean if it was worth it, if he was happy. If he'd be better off with Justin or that Muggle girl from university or whoever the fuck. If Seamus's friendship is worth all the trouble and annoyance.

But he doesn't ask, maybe because he doesn't want to know the answer, and Dean goes on about Jabba the Hutt or whatever and he nods along.

·¤·

He doesn't know when exactly he realized he thinks he loves Dean back. He doesn't really understand love, doesn't know what it means or what it feels like. He loves his mother, sure. Loves his father, loves his friends. He can't pinpoint any changes directly.

Maybe it's after Dean tells him he thinks he loves him. After he thinks about it, obsesses, really. Maybe he's been in love for months, years. Who knew? _Definitely_ not Seamus.

He thinks about it a lot after Dean mentions it. Thinks about whatever the fuck it is. Love. Friendship. Maybe both. Maybe something else.

Who knows?

·¤·

They are sitting together at the table eating. Seamus had enough rare motivation to make pancakes. He suspects that Dean doesn't trust this as a decent meal, but Dean is smiling. Seamus wonders briefly if he is trying to make Seamus feel better. It feels sort of lame, really.

Good job, Seamus. You made pancakes.

Dean says, half laughing, "These aren't even good pancakes and I don't care. I love them."

Dean said once that he loved Ginny. Dean told plenty of people he loved them, when Seamus was pretending he didn't hear them. Seamus wonders if Dean was just throwing the word around, when he said it to him.

He doesn't think so, which scares him.

"I think they're okay if there's enough butter," he says.

"Is that your solution to everything?" says Dean, whose smile suddenly seems to be trying too hard. "More butter?"

Seamus smiles anyway, because at least someone here is trying, and he wishes suddenly he were too. "Butter never hurts."

Dean sticks a piece of pancake in his mouth. "Too much butter is unhealthy," he says with his mouth full, pointing his fork at Seamus.

"That's fine by me," says Seamus. "Still better than jelly."

He wonders if Dean was like this for the others. Wonders how much of Dean today is Dean thinking he could be in love. How much is just Dean worrying about his depressed and pathetic roommate.

·¤·

The dishes are washing in the sink and they are not watching the TV. Dean is trying to fluff their single pathetic cushion. Chucks it at Seamus.

"Remember fourth year?" he says.

"Summoning Charms?" says Seamus. "I remember Neville made Flitwick fly."

"I remember you forgot the spell on the second day we were practising it and just yelled 'Move!' at your cushion," says Dean.

Seamus had forgotten about that.

"You make it sound so lame," he says. "I only yelled it once."

"Yeah, because I told you the spell," says Dean, and laughs.

Seamus laughs too. Carried away, maybe, by the two of them sitting there, laughing. They used to do this so much.

And now Dean is laughing and pointing at the TV and saying something about the idiotic American on the screen throwing something.

 _I think I'm in love with you_ , Dean had said. So careful, so well thought out. _I think I want to spend my life with you_.

Like with many things, Seamus doesn't think before leaning over to Dean and kissing him.

Dean kisses him back. They pull away at the same time, like they're aware of what they've just done.

"Seamus," says Dean.

Seamus doesn't look at him.

"Are you sure?" says Dean. "Do you mean it?"

Seamus looks at him. "Would I have done it if I didn't?"

·¤·

His mother used to ask him about the girls at school. She'd been all _over_ it when he told her he went to the Yule Ball with Lavender, had asked him question after question about it, but he'd never really cared. He'd been too young, then he'd had his OWLs, then the mess with Dean and Ginny had happened and he'd decided he didn't care, then there'd been a war on and no point anyway.

There are things that change when he admits he's in love, and not just the sleeping part of his schedule, not just that they kiss, still tasting smoke. There are things he notices, in Dean's demeanor and Dean's tentative laugh and Dean's attempts at decent conversation. Things that he thinks he falls in love with. It's a slow process. A long process. Weeks and weeks and weeks.

Seamus had never really considered being in love with a boy. (Man? Boy? They were both too old to be boys and nowhere near men.) He had never really considered being in love with a girl, either, not outside the vague _that's what's supposed to happen_ speculation. He wonders what it is about Dean that is different, that feels different. He can't figure it out, fuck him.

But that's always been his life. Unable to figure anything out. And that's what's become his life, fuck him. Ha, ha, ha.

He pretends it doesn't bother him, that his life is still essentially sleeping and smoking and watching TV but _differently_. Pretends it doesn't bother him that he's now not only a useless, unemployed lump, but a useless, unemployed, _gay_ lump. But it does bother him, and he suspects Dean can tell. Dean can tell everything. It drives him mad sometimes.

He'd known Dean liked boys for ages, since one offhand comment and some very awkward conversations and a month of Seamus trying to be supportive of it before realising that it wasn't _that_ big a deal and he was just being annoying. Dean used to talk about girls with him- boys, too, sometimes, but he'd sort of stopped after a while and Seamus doesn't want to think about why.

Seamus had been politely interested in the girls, politely disinterested in the boys. So what had _changed_?

Nothing, really. He's still a useless lump. He still doesn't do shit. The best part of his life is still getting high with Dean every so often.

God, he's a mess. He's been a mess since last year, since Dean went on the run and Snape became Head.

Messy messy messy.

He rather envies Dean. Dean's a mess too, but at least he's a _functional_ mess.

He sort of hates Dean, too, hates how goddamned perfectly he's coping with his stress and his whatever the fuck he calls it. Trauma. Hates that Dean's always been the smarter one, of the two of them. Hates it and respects it.

But he's pretty sure he loves Dean.

·¤·

He goes to the reunion, on the second anniversary of the Battle. Only because Lavender asks him to. He'd missed the first one; she says he shouldn't cut himself off. They sit around and talk, the DA. Drink butterbeer.

They talk about last year as though it's an old story, some of the DA. They say, "Remember Hannah and those fourth years? Remember when Neville asked Alecto how much Muggle blood she had? Remember when Seamus-"

Seamus doesn't like it much. They all act like it was ages ago, like it's done for and over. He knows it _is_ , it _is_ done for and over. It still feels weird.

Dean didn't come- he said he wouldn't understand. Seamus supposes that's fair. Justin didn't come either, Harry and Ron and Hermione didn't come.

It's underwhelming. They're better off not there, to be honest.

He ends up sitting near Dennis Creevey. He's honestly surprised to see him here. He'd asked Lavender how was the DA when he saw her weeks ago, and according to her, Dennis Creevey had locked himself off and stopped talking to people.

God, Seamus had said. Imagine someone doing _that_.

Lavender hadn't seemed sure whether or not to laugh. She'd smiled.

Seamus has seen her smile more in the last few weeks than he remembers last year.

Hum ho.

"Surprised to see you," says Dennis. "Hannah said you dropped off the earth."

Seamus tilts his head. "Did she?"

There's no response. But it'd been a stupid question. "Lavender said the same about you," he says.

"Girls," says Dennis, and Seamus laughs, more because he hadn't expected the response than because it was funny.

Seamus doesn't know what's wrong about it, honestly. These are the people he spent that year with. These are, for all intents and purposes, the people who should have the best idea of what he feels like all the time. The people who _understand_.

Dean _doesn't_ understand. Dean won't ever understand the way the other DA will, no matter how many stupid pseudo-therapy "do you want to talk about it?" questions he throws at Seamus. Dean tries, Seamus knows he does, but trying won't help him understand. This is the _DA._ These are people who should feel the same way.

But they don't, and that's the worst of it. He leaves early, tells Lavender he's tired. She gives him an _I know you aren't really_ look but doesn't say anything.

Seamus chucks his DA Galleon at the wall of his room. It leaves a little mark in the plaster. Fuck him.

He asks Lavender if he's pathetic. She tells him tactfully that she thinks he should try harder to _live_ and not hole himself up here sleeping. He tells her she might as well have agreed instead of trying to coddle him, and she says she wasn't trying to _coddle_ him. He laughs.

He asks his mam if he's pathetic. She tells him he's been through a hard time and it's natural to be struggling.

"So I am," he says.

"That's not what I said," she says.

"Sure it wasn't," he says.

He doesn't ask Dean, because Dean will give him a funny look, something sad and frustrated and pitying and loving all at once, and Seamus doesn't really want that.

·¤·

There's a lot that changes when he tells his mother. She is weird at first, then drastically shifts to being supportive. _Too_ supportive, almost- she tells him constantly that she supports and believes in him, buys him pamphlets on why being gay is okay, tells him she's an _ally_.

"Was I this bad when you told me?" he asks Dean, who finds the whole thing hilarious.

"Well, it was worse, because you were my best mate," says Dean, who is struggling to keep a straight face. "But at least you didn't give me pamphlets."

"Sod off," says Seamus, but he's smiling.

·¤·

Things are changing, somehow. He laughs at Dean's jokes. He lets Lavender in and is honest with her when she asks how he is. He goes out with some of the DA to a restaurant and doesn't sit listlessly and quiet.

He still doesn't tell Dean shit about what had happened at Hogwarts, tells his mother even less, barely lets himself think about it. Doesn't like to leave. Is still useless and unemployed.

But that doesn't matter yet, right? He still has time to figure things out. He has time to get a job so that he and Dean aren't trying to live on a part-time salary and the disability payments that Seamus hadn't turned down when the Ministry offered. He has so much time.

His mother says that's good. His mother tells him she's so happy he's home. He has barely seen his father since before the war- his father is distant, unsure, like he doesn't know how Seamus has changed and how to deal with it.

Seamus doesn't know how to deal with it either.

He's nineteen. He was seventeen the last time he really talked to his father. He's sorry for it, sorry for cutting himself off that way. He suspects his father is sorry too.

But he and his mother fight over who should wash the dishes and who should dry them and it means absolutely nothing. Seamus starts laughing halfway through the argument and can't stop.

It meant _nothing_. It was going to be fine. Life was going to keep going and going and going, and Seamus wasn't afraid of that anymore.

·¤·

How are you, Seamus? his mother says.

I'm good, he tells her. I'm happy.

And maybe, maybe he is.


End file.
